


Hey You

by Lothiriel84



Series: Abandoned [4]
Category: MarsCorp (Podcast)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Family Secrets, Fix-It, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 11:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11577474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lothiriel84/pseuds/Lothiriel84
Summary: Hey you, with you ear against the wallWaiting for someone to call outWould you touch me?





	Hey You

They were both sitting cross-legged on David’s makeshift bed – which was nothing more than a mattress laid out on the floor – staring into their bottles of caffeinated beer, all the while enjoying each other’s presence as an antidote to the darkness of their own thoughts. They weren’t exactly friends as such, though they had become much closer after the showdown with Colin, and Dave honestly couldn’t say he minded at all.

He noticed David giving him sidelong glances, patiently waited for him to make eye contact. David cleared his throat, absently tracing his finger over the mouth of the bottle.

“So, you’re, um – you’re really Colin’s son, right?” he found the courage to ask at length, his voice only shaking a little. “I – guess that makes sense, in a way?”

“Yeah, well,” he smirked, somewhat ruefully. “The apple never falls far from the tree, whatever all that Earth nonsense is about. Though I really can’t tell if it was more a case of Colin taking a leaf out of my mother’s book, or the other way round. But I guess you already know that.”

“I knew you’d seen us that night,” David sighed, the lines on his face doing a complicate dance in a mixture of embarrassment, and plain sadness. “Colin kept saying it was too dark for anyone to actually recognise us, but – well, that’s Colin for you.”

Dave looked at the dark shadows under his eyes, the haunted look that was his most prominent feature these days. “I don’t mean to be rude, but why did you – with Colin, of all people? You were a smart kid from what I’ve heard, and a True Blue. You could have had anyone you wanted, so why go for a man nearly twenty years your senior?”

“Ah, actually, there weren’t that many people who wanted to date me, back then. Not that it’s much different now – but I’m fine with it, honestly. As for Colin, well, he was just so brilliant, and clever, and so incredibly beautiful. I could hardly believe my luck when he decided he might want me after all.”

They both sighed, and Dave reached for another bottle. David handed him the fancy bottle opener he’d bought from his store, took another swig of beer as if he was tasting some fine Earth whisky Dave had sometimes heard posh people natter on about.

“Why did you help me then, if you cared so much about Colin?” he asked after a rather long pause, genuinely curious about what was going on in that mad genius head.

David looked at him for a long moment, before seemingly making up his mind. “You remember that time they sent you in to swipe the floor of my cell, back when the Technology Department was upgrading the servicebots?”

“I think I do, yeah. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You – well, I know this is kind of silly, but you – you looked at me. Properly. You know, like I was a person; a fellow human being.”

“You do realise you are in fact a person, right?”

David shook his head, offered him an unexpectedly authentic smile. “None of the other Martians thought of me as a person, Dave. I was just a traitor, a scourge – a threat to the mission, if you like. I had even started hoping they might sentence me to death, anything would have been preferable to solitary confinement with my own thoughts as the only company.”

Something cold and heavy settled at the bottom of Dave’s stomach, a distant echo of David’s loneliness and misery. He thought back to all the time he’d spent hating his family, his own status as an Orange; he didn’t know what to make of any of it, so he went back to his beer instead.

“Why don’t you join Resources? With your science skills, and my talent for marketing, we could team up, and really make something out of ourselves.”

David glanced down, considering. “I – I’ll bear that in mind. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, mate. Cheers,” he grinned, clinking their bottles together. David smiled again, his gaze just a tiny less haunted, then downed the rest of his beer in one go.


End file.
